Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Oh, Morning Star, Make a Path for Me- Wins an Award of Merit

I have no intention of cutting off my ear. But this painting did give me some sympathy for Van Goh's creative frustrations. Less of a painting and more of a pilgrimage through uncut roads, questing for an unknown ideal, rather than a vista. By the time it was finished I couldn't tell if my love for it was born of pure loyalty to the quest or the reality of successful painting. I am so delighted the SMOFA found some merit in it.

Although it is a mystery piece, It is obviously an exposition on the hypocephalus. As the Egyptians described the hypocephalus, it was a spell or prayer to "cause heat to come under the head of the glorified being." In other words- to begin their resurrection. Although it initially reminds many of the Catholic halo, scholars have more often drawn parallels to the taijitu and ancient star maps, hence the title "Oh Morning Star, Make a Path for Me," quotes from the
Egyptian belief that the king has conquered death, becoming deified in
the stars, proving that path available to us.

The taijitu is more commonly known as the yin and yang circle, the "diagram of ultimate power" of the Taoists. The two complementary opposites I am focusing on here is the magnetic pull between the mortal (Chthonian) experience and the promise of the eternal.

In other words the interdependence of two opposites: man and woman. Woman being the giver of (mortal) life, while man, particularly the Son of Man, holds mastery over the immortal sphere, priesthood. His ultimate triumph is resurrection, particularly as he achieves it for his wife and children. (Which came first his child, or his desire to resurrect him?) And with fatherhood, suddenly, there is an intensity to his desire to wield the power of the priesthood- an intensity IMPOSSIBLE without family. That intensity is what fuels the priesthood, and in partnership with motherhood, becomes the building block of the eternities.